by Jean Barrett
“Lane Eastman,” he said in that deep, resonant voice that had frustrated her on too many occasions, and using her full name as though he’d just learned it. He held out his hand.
You can do this, she instructed herself firmly. You’re no longer nineteen and vulnerable. You’ve had seven years to build maturity and confidence. Show him just how self-possessed you’ve become.
“How are you, Jack?”
Her greeting was smooth and easy. Good. She was in control. Until, that is, she accepted his offered hand and his strong fingers clasped hers. Mere physical contact with him was her undoing, just as it always had been in a past she preferred not to remember. She could suddenly feel herself coming apart inside. And, damn him, he knew it! She could tell he knew it by the smoldering gleam in his eyes. He’d always recognized her vulnerability to him.
Wonderful. There was already an element of strain about this whole weekend. She’d been sensing the undercurrents ever since they’d all come together at the dock. Now this!
“Never better,” Jack assured her. “So, how about you, Lane?”
He didn’t wait for her to tell him. She could feel those deep blue eyes carefully appraising her. Discovering, perhaps, that she knew how to dress her slender figure with more style these days, that she wore her cinnamon hair longer and with less curl, even noticing that she’d learned restraint in the use of makeup on a face that qualified as winsome if not sublime. She was aggravated with herself that it should matter in the least whether he approved of these changes.
Managing to extract her hand from his grip, she covered her inner turmoil with a hasty response. “I’m fine.”
“Still rising in the hotel business?”
“I try to. I’m assistant manager now for one of the chain’s four-star inns.”
“Good for you. In St. Louis, right?”
She was surprised that he knew.
“I manage to stay informed,” he assured her.
It worried her that he would make the effort. She was relieved when Ronnie Bauer, hovering close by, impatiently interrupted their absurdly polite exchange. “Are you going to share him, dear?”
Allison saved the moment by introducing him to those he hadn’t already met. “Dr. Jack Donovan, everyone.”
Ronnie was impressed, and purring flirtatiously. “Do you specialize, doctor?”
“Bones,” he said.
“I’ll certainly remember that if I ever break one.”
“I don’t mend them, Ms. Bauer. I dig them up.”
Ronnie was plainly confused until Hale corrected her misconception. “Oh, for heaven’s sakes, Mother, he’s not a medical man. He’s a doctor of paleontology.”
“Fossils?”
“Dinosaur, to be exact,” Jack said.
“Even better,” she cooed. “All those exciting expeditions. Just like the hunk in Jurassic Park.”
“Hunting for usable fossils is no Hollywood adventure, Ms. Bauer,” he informed her dryly. “It’s a lot of time-consuming, hot-as-hell labor.”
How well she had learned that truth, Lane thought.
“Hey,” Stuart demanded, “are we going or not?”
Jack eyed the waiting sleighs. The first one had places for six people, including the driver. The second, carrying all the luggage for the party, had space for only two passengers in the rear.
“Give us a minute,” he said.
Before Lane could object, Jack drew her off to one side for a private exchange.
“I’d like for us to ride together in that second sleigh.”
There was a determined look in his eyes that warned her to avoid any such intimate arrangement. “Not a chance.”
“Look,” he pressed her, “it isn’t what you think. It’s just that I’d feel better if we rode together.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t trust the situation.”
“The sleighs?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s the whole setup of this weekend that bothers me. I learned something last night I don’t like. All right, so it probably doesn’t mean a thing. Let’s just say you humor me, and we stick together.”
There was a mysterious grimness in his undertone that frightened her. Was he serious? For a moment she was inclined to think so. Then she dismissed the whole thing, remembering how often in the past she had fallen for Jack Donovan’s take-charge, overprotective tactics. Well, not this time.
“Sorry,” Lane said at a volume that could be heard by the others, “but I’ve already promised Judge Whitney I’d ride with him.”
She hadn’t, and she regretted the necessity for her impulsive lie. She could see how surprised Dan was when she rejoined the group, but he offered no word of contradiction.
Before Jack could object, Ronnie linked a proprietary arm through his. “Sit with me, and you can tell me all about these important fossils of yours.”
Lane watched an irritated Jack being hauled off to the second sleigh. She felt sorry for him. Almost.
Dan, falling in step beside Lane as the rest of them moved toward the sleighs, whispered in concern, “Is something wrong?”
She shook her head, then offered a quick apology. “I’m sorry about that. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Riding with you? On the contrary, it’s my pleasure.” She could feel his curious gaze on her as they reached the end of the dock. “An old friend of yours?”
She knew he was referring to Jack. “Not exactly.” She hesitated. There was no reason he shouldn’t know. “Try an old husband. Now,” she added, just as buoyantly as she could, “would you like to suggest some graceful way to climb down from this dock and into that sleigh?”
* * *
THE HORSES WERE POWERFUL Belgians, able to draw the heavy sleighs over the fractured ice of the broad harbor with an effortless ease. The snow cover, thick in places, almost nonexistent in others, formed swirling patterns across the wrinkled surface. Through the brittle air the sleigh bells called to each other musically.
It should have been a pleasant experience, one that Lane could enjoy without reservation. Instead, she twisted in her seat to gaze back longingly at the receding village where a pair of white church steeples rose through the dark evergreens against the steep hillside. Those spires looked so solid and comforting, the ice beneath her so fearfully insecure.
“No need to be nervous,” her insightful companion assured her. “We don’t very often get safe ice on the bay this soon in the season, but it’s been an unusually early winter with a lot of hard freezes. And the Nordstrom brothers,” he added, referring to their drivers, “are experienced and know what they’re doing.”
Lane turned her head, managing a lopsided smile for Dan beside her. “That obvious, huh?”
“Your tension? Well, a little,” he conceded with a gentle smile.
She considered him, thinking how different he was from his cousin, Allison, with his relaxed manner and brown hair frosted with gray. He was the sort of person who prompted confidences, probably a good quality in a judge. She decided to share a confidence of her own.
“And I was hoping it wouldn’t show. But I really do have a good reason for minding so much. Bad memory.”
“Something traumatic?” he guessed.
“You could say that. When I was about eight or so a playmate and I went out skating where we had no business to be. The ice was rotten, and it collapsed under us. I was lucky. They managed to fish me out. She wasn’t. She was dragged under the ice. When they did get to her it was, well, too late.”
“Good Lord,” he murmured sympathetically, “then this crossing must be a real ordeal for you.”
Her laugh was shaky, and she knew it. “Let’s just say that when it comes to ice I prefer it in my drinks to having it under my feet. Uh, I’d appreciate it if my little confession was just between the two of us.”
“Done.”
“Thank you.”
Lane made another concentrated effort to enjoy the crossing. Or at least tolerate it. Not eas
y considering their present position. They had left the harbor behind them and were now on the open reaches of the great bay. The frozen sea, like a lunar landscape, was seamed with hazards around which the sleighs carefully detoured. The ice had faulted and folded in some past thaw—huge, upthrust slabs of it scraped head-high along a shoal. The stacked shards glittered like crystal under the winter sun.
Dan pointed to small, jerry-built shelters scattered across the surface. Some of them had small Christmas trees anchored to their roofs. “Fishing shanties,” he explained. “If it’s clear tomorrow, holiday or not, the ice fishers will drive out here in bunches in their trucks and spend most of the day.”
She knew he meant it as another encouragement. It didn’t work. She was too busy minding the alien ice. She could swear it was alive. She could actually hear it now creaking, snapping with the cold, rolling like drums in the distance. Awful.
“Have you and Allison been longtime friends?” he asked her.
Lane suspected that his question wasn’t motivated by curiosity but was actually a further attempt to distract her from the terrors of the ice. She was more than willing to accommodate him.
“Have I been kept a secret?” she teased.
“Well, we’re the only family each other has these days, but with Allison way off in Chicago most of the year, I’m afraid we don’t keep up with each other’s lives.”
“Then to answer your question, yes, we do go back a few years. Since our undergraduate days at Northwestern University, actually. And it was a pretty unlikely beginning. Our friendship, that is.”
“Why is that?”
“Well—” The sleigh runners struck a rough spot in the ice, jouncing them. Lane fought her anxiety and continued. “We were universes apart. I was fresh off the farm—Indiana, to be exact—and as green as they make them. I wouldn’t have been there at all if it hadn’t been for a generous scholarship. And here was Allison and her crowd with every advantage behind them.” She realized how that might sound to Dan. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to imply—”
His small laugh interrupted her. “Don’t apologize. It’s Allison’s side of the family with all the money, not mine.”
“Anyway, I completely misunderstood her. I thought she was...oh, you know, the stereotypical spoiled heiress. And to be honest about it, I guess there is that side of her. But nobody minds it, do they? She’s too lovable and generous.”
“To a fault,” he agreed. “So the friendship was born?”
“As I remember, it had something to do with rescuing me from a lecherous quarterback. After that she more or less adopted me. I think Allison was convinced I was much too naive to survive on my own. She was probably right. So here we are, still friends—though long-distance friends now—and the relationship still amazes me.”
Northwestern University, Lane thought. It wasn’t just Allison she had met back then. Jack Donovan had been there, too, working on his doctorate and already making a reputation for himself in his field. If it was true that her connection with Allison had been improbable, then her bonding with Jack could be defined as incredible.
From the beginning, from their first encounter, in fact, the sexual attraction between them had been so powerful it had stunned both of them. But the miracle—and it had been just that—never stood a chance.
Not smart, she reminded herself. Not smart at all reliving her brief marriage, remembering how hard she had fallen for him and the heartache that had eventually resulted. But how could she avoid remembering? An absent Jack Donovan was hard enough to forget. But when he was actually here, only yards away in the next sleigh, the effort was impossible.
Though she had resisted riding with him, permitting Ronnie Bauer to inflict herself on the poor man, she couldn’t prevent her awareness of Jack. Even from here his Gaelic good looks were evident. It hurt just looking at him.
Why was he here, and how was she supposed to spend an entire weekend in the same house with him? And that unexplained warning of his back on the dock... What did that mean? Nothing, she tried to convince herself. Just a ploy to get her to ride with him. Then why couldn’t she stop thinking about it?
Danger. There was an aura of danger here that intensified when Jack sensed her gaze on him. He swiveled in his seat, making eye contact with her across the ice that separated them. The hot challenge in his probing stare robbed her lungs of air. There was also a glowering accusation in his look. Jack was not prepared to forgive her for Ronnie. The woman, squeezed against him as tightly as decency permitted, was clearly aggravating him on every level.
Lane didn’t think he’d appreciate her sudden smile. She hid it by shifting behind the pair of cross-country skis that protruded from the luggage piled in the middle seat between them and their driver.
“Sorry,” Dan said.
She glanced at him, perplexed.
“The skis blocking your view,” he explained. “They’re mine. I’m hoping to get in some time with them this weekend.”
Which accounted for the bright blue insulated jumpsuit he was wearing, she realized.
“This probably will be my last chance to ski the island, so I’d like to take advantage of the opportunity. Which, of course,” he went on, “is also the reason Allison is insisting on having her wedding on the island.”
Here it was again, she thought. Another reference to Allison’s mysterious determination.
Dan noticed her puzzlement and shook his head. “I shouldn’t be mentioning it. It’s for Allison to explain, and I think she’s planning to do that before the wedding tomorrow. So,” he said, quickly changing the subject, “where are we now?” He checked the distance from his side of the sleigh. “Better than halfway there, I think. How are you holding up?”
She was about to assure him she was doing just fine when off to her left she spotted what looked like a veil of steam rising from the ice. Her apprehension was exasperating to her, but she couldn’t help her alarm. “Is that what I think it is?”
Dan followed her gaze and nodded. “Yes,” he said mildly, “a patch of open water. Sometimes the currents force a breach. Don’t worry. The Nordstroms know how to read the ice. They’ll avoid any tricky spots.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” He must think her an absolute neurotic, she thought. All the same, she couldn’t wait to put this crossing behind her.
The fishing shanties were far behind them now. There was nothing on the sea of ice but the two racing sleighs. The air was no longer still. Lane could feel a ripple of wind in her face as their destination loomed ahead of them. This time she distracted herself by remembering what Allison had told her about Thunder Island.
By legend, it was the ancestral home of the Thunder clan of the Menominee people who had once dominated this entire region of Wisconsin. Shaped like an artist’s palette, the island was almost two hundred acres in extent. Nearly all of it was heavily wooded with evergreens and mixed hardwoods. On its southern end—and Lane could see them clearly now—were massive, sheer limestone bluffs sloping gradually to the low, rocky shoreline on the north. The lodge was situated on the higher end of the island. She searched for a glimpse of it as they neared the island, but the forest concealed it.
“Almost there,” Dan promised as they rounded the shoulder of the closest bluff and headed into the indented portion of the palette, which formed a natural harbor.
Seconds later their sleigh reached the island’s dock, where the pickup truck that had brought out the supplies and the weekend helpers was parked. Lane felt like a white-knuckled flier who has just made a safe landing. Climbing from the sleigh with relief, she expressed her gratitude to Dan.
“Thanks for all the expert hand-holding. Oh, it looks like we’re being met.”
Two men, who must have noted their arrival from the lodge, were descending the bluff trail. Lane and the judge watched them emerge single file from the trees.
“Probably came down to help with the luggage,” Dan said. “That’s Nils Asker in the lead. Runs a charte
r fishing boat in the summers. Allison has known him and his wife, Dorothy, since she was a girl. Dorothy will be waiting for us up at the house.”
The figure he indicated was tall and bony with a weathered Nordic face.
“And the other one?” Lane asked.
The second man had appeared from behind Nils where the path widened. He was younger than Nils, broad shouldered and copper skinned. He had the impressive, dark good looks of a pure Native American on his stoic face.
“That would be Nils’s brother-in-law, Chris Beaver,” Dan said slowly, “but I thought...”
He didn’t finish. There was a sudden expression of concern on his face. Lane, puzzled, saw him glance sharply in Allison’s direction. The second sleigh was emptying on the other side of the dock. Allison was busy talking to the driver, getting his assurance that both sleighs would return for them on Monday noon. She was unaware of the newcomers until Nils called a friendly greeting.
Lane was even more mystified then by Allison’s reaction when she looked up and discovered the presence of Chris Beaver. Her face registered shock and another emotion that could only be described as unhappiness. What’s more, her bridegroom, Hale, hadn’t missed her response. Chris, meanwhile, began silently unloading luggage, his somber black eyes making contact with none of them.
And just what, Lane wondered, is this all about?
She had no chance to find out. Jack had left the other sleigh and was striding toward her purposefully. That meant she had her own emotions to deal with, and they weren’t easy ones.
It didn’t help that he was dressed like that—his familiar Aussie outback hat crammed on his head at a rakish tilt, plus bulky ski jacket and snug cords that emphasized his lean masculinity. But then, Jack Donovan would have been disarming in a Sherpa ceremonial robe.
Subtlety was never his style, and obviously that hadn’t changed. Reaching her, he wasted no time in asking bluntly, “You all right? Was the crossing bad for you?”
Of course, he knew all about her phobia. He knew far too much about her, damn it.
